r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/drkmatterinc • Feb 04 '23
In 1825 painter Samuel Morse received a letter which read that his wife was sick. The day after that a new one said that she was dead. When 2 days later he went to his wife, he discovered that she was already buried. Pissed off for the slowness of communications, he invented the Morse code. Image
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Feb 04 '23
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u/s3dfdg289fdgd9829r48 Feb 05 '23
Back when Stomp was a big thing, I got enthralled. Eventually I came up with the idea that I could merge my love of rap with my love of stomping by dancing my lyrics in Morse Code. I practiced my ass off and truly thought become famous doing this and it would be the next big thing. First day I got a permit to busk I quickly learned that nobody knows Morse Code and I was just some idiot on the street stomping and hitting objects strangely.
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u/teeohdeedee123 Feb 04 '23
... ..- -.-. .... / .- / ... .- -.. / ... - --- .-. -.-- / -... ..- - / ... ..- -.-. .... / .- / --. .-. . .- - / --. .. ..-. - / - --- / - .... . / .-- --- .-. .-.. -..
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u/Mr-MarkX
Feb 04 '23
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Samuel Morse didn't actually invent Morse code as we know it now; it was Alfred Vail. Vail was an inventor who worked with Morse to perfect several pieces of the telegraph system and he also financed some of the research. In the original code system that Morse invented you decoded the dots and dashes into a number, you then had to look up in a code book the word that number represented. Vail changed it over to have the dot and dashes represent individual letters, it was much more efficient. In the end Morse owned all the patents related to the telegraph, so Vail never got credit for inventing the code.
I actually live 2 blocks away from the Speedwell Iron Works where Morse and Vail did their work on the telegraph. The elementary school down the street from the Iron Works is interesting named after Alfred Vail and not Samuel Morse.
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u/Tank905 Feb 05 '23
His wife died in 1825.
In 1836 Morse helped create the electrical telegraph, but it need a method of communication with just electrical pulses. Around 1837 Morse developed Morse Code to fit this technology.
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u/drkmatterinc Feb 04 '23
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u/WikiSummarizerBot Feb 04 '23
Samuel Morse
While returning by ship from Europe in 1832, Morse encountered Charles Thomas Jackson of Boston, a man who was well schooled in electromagnetism. Witnessing various experiments with Jackson's electromagnet, Morse developed the concept of a single-wire telegraph. He set aside his painting, The Gallery of the Louvre. The original Morse telegraph, submitted with his patent application, is part of the collections of the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution.
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u/Chard069 Feb 05 '23
We need an epic commemorative statue or painting -- MORSE ON A HORSE -- riding a rearing stallion, with lightning bolts and/or telegraph keys in his gnarly hands. A steam locomotive could be in the art too, since telegraphy permitted long-distance railroading. Yes, I can see it all now...
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u/spacehog1985 Feb 05 '23
Soviet Submarine Captain Marko Ramius stole a submarine and defected to the United States after his wife died.
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u/a-woman-there-was Feb 05 '23
I always like hearing these stories about dudes who have some kind of personal tragedy or predicament and then make it their life’s work to try and solve it.
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u/Escape_Velocity1 Feb 05 '23
They do say that necessity is the mother of all inventions. Or is it fundings to specialists? This fuck was a mere painter.
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u/Big-Mathematician540 Feb 05 '23
Technically Morse codes isn't a code, but a cipher. He was helped greatly in tve development by Alfred Vail, so instead of "Morse code" it could just as well, and perhaps even more accurately be termed "Vail's Cipher"
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u/Sasquatch_butt6162 Feb 04 '23
Remorse code is more like it.